Developing Leadership Capability for Change Using Coaching and Mentoring

Developing Leadership Capability for Change Using Coaching and Mentoring

Context

The need for comprehensive education for primary school children has given rise to greater stress on tutors’ theoretical cognizance of learners and coaching, and the importance of translating theory into practice. Having a qualitative approach to analyze and discuss how primary school teachers in the UK profess their learned competence and ways of using it in their instructive coaching and adapting it in their professional capacities remains paramount. Lindahl (2007) asserted that leading significant improvements and reforms in schools proves to be a challenging process. Taking up a leadership role in school improvement requires teachers to justify and enact decisions concerning the necessary educational and theoretical methods to employ in their schools. It also requires them to justify how they reconcile possible contradictions and conflicts between their individual concepts, academic, and theoretical facts, and those from the existing curriculum. A framework analysis conducted by Olsen and Chrispeels (2009) provided rich qualitative facts that illuminated the leadership capabilities and theoretical competencies needed among teachers to effect change in a school.  Among the capabilities, coaching stood out as it offers an expansive scope of integrating existing and new approaches to achieve the desired change in a school.

In spite of an ongoing plan of realizing educational improvements across the school, Lindahl (2007) indicated that a long chain of intertwined challenges impedes change in schools. The approaches used when training teachers, the form of organization in schools, the manner in which the educational ladder works, and the manner in which education is affected by political decision-makers upholds a structure with a high likelihood of retaining the status quo than bringing change. The education system in the UK has particularly depended on politically fashioned short-term agendas, and programs and Armstrong, (2006) submits that the approach has remained incapable of questioning or changing the prevailing methods of schooling. The existing patterns of education also reveal the fragmentary models of educational resourcing whose basis remains on categories of variance and generates extra obstacles to advancement that keep reinforcing a technical method to the professional teaching practices as highlighted by Thomson and Sanders, (2010). These teaching practices put teachers on a course that undercuts and limits critical thinking as an autonomous social and learning experience (Armstrong, 2006).

In the drive to make progress and improve education through reforms, then the prominence of value aspects with firm foundations in cultural and social beliefs concerning learning, schooling, and differences need due to acknowledgment. Critical social concept apprises an approach to teaching that can enable teacher imagination and reflection to contemplate a different reality and optimism for schooling and society. Harris (2008) indicated that the critical social concept draws on the importance of change by stimulating ideological evaluations, and breakdown of values, focusing on constructive dialogue, and a recasting of teachers as intellectual, educational workers. There is a need to consider teaching as a practice that represents the educators’ accumulated knowledge with regard to the teaching acumen attained through practice over time.

It is in this context of a value and differences system that the school where I practice is functioning, with a rather average reputation in the region. Failure to come up with educational reforms could have severe reputational and educational consequences. Accordingly, it is crucial that the school makes changes to align rapidly to the shifting trends in schooling and rise up to the challenges outlined, making the most of the opportunities that present with the need for change (Hotho, 2013). As part of the school teaching fraternity, it is my part to mobilize my colleagues in readiness to make a shift to the new trends, aiding to expedite the realization of the school’s objectives. Towards capitalizing on my colleagues’ capabilities, I require to first recognize how the teaching fraternity and students could be affected by the process of implementing and experiencing change (Wilkins, 2004). Such knowledge remains key to decreasing opposition to the reforms and enables efficient education. Using the assignment at hand, I intend to deliberate exactly how, as the leader of the teaching fraternity, I can make use of coaching and mentoring as an intellectual approach in leadership to exploit the capabilities of teachers in my school (Thomson and Sanders, 2010). The focus remains on making fine changes to the curriculum to improve the delivery of education to learners enrolled in the school.

The initiation of novice teachers in primary education institutions remains a continuously improving process. Lumby (2012) highlighted the different methods employed towards advancing policy measures to ensure the initial year upheld fundamental aspects of systematic evaluation and professional development. Beginning with attempts to link primary training and induction, policy advancements brought up principles of evaluating and stimulated professional monitoring and support (Murthy,2007). The policy developments sought to deliver suitable support and assistance to the newly qualified teachers’ efforts through the evaluation of their competencies. In the drive to realize a fair comparison between professional development and assessment, specific support frameworks came into practice (Rantf and Rantf, 1999). However, Schermerhorn (2009) asserted that most teachers’ first year in school as a professional presented with a classroom reality that fell short in the support framework. Most of the new teachers in schools seemed to possess insufficient information, felt isolated, and considered their initial year in schools as focused only on the evaluation of their competencies instead of professional development. Similar findings exist in the work of Thomson and Sanders (2010). Although most studies reveal some enhanced practices in the induction of newly qualified teachers, the overall experience proves significantly disappointing to newly qualified teachers. Through having a critical, insightful process, newly qualified teachers may find it possible to seamlessly integrate into the primary school context. Such a process also expedites their ability to develop articulate validations for their values in classroom practice and opens up their awareness of practical alternatives instead of relying on intuition. The range of professional experiences for newly qualified teachers begins with integration in the school system. During the course of their careers, teachers participate in constant professional development, which is crucial for competency development among newly qualified teachers.

Defining Coaching and Mentoring

In different workplaces, specific skills-based techniques used include coaching, mentoring, and other L&D methods such as training, job rotation, understudy, committee assignments, conferences and seminars, and programmed instruction. In coaching, the objective of remains to achieve set goals, the realization of which prompts the evaluation of the relationship between the coach and the coached. However, mentoring involves the direct transfer of the mentor’s knowledge and experience to the team whose aspirations align with the mentor’s position (Connor and Pokora, 2012). Support and guidance remain the core pillars of a mentorship process.

Unlike the professional approach in coaching, mentorship seems significantly informal. In coaching, the focus remains on getting the persons involved to embrace responsibility for the problem at hand and making decisions to ameliorate the condition. It tends to look into personal attitude, beliefs, and behavior, and often contains broad discussions regarding the person’s past experiences. Through both mentorship and coaching, a job-skills alignment aiming at improving particular aspects of skills and knowledge is achievable and beneficial in the short term and the long term. Well-designed coaching and mentoring focuses on the skill requirements of the organization, department, team, and the individual. It also incorporates the learner’s perceived needs and goals in addition to the school’s objectives and needs analysis.

A one on one coaching process takes up four distinct steps (Whitmore, 2010). The first step involves engagement coupled with environmental analysis to determine performance-based goals. Through a non-directive approach, the team participates through identifying the purpose, benefits, and action plan needed in the process. More often than not, the organization sets out the purpose, and both the coach and team get acquainted with it. The second step focuses on goal setting by obtaining pertinent information on the needed outcomes. From a directive approach, the coach pinpoints the targeted areas while the non-directive approach takes account of the team’s input in determining the objectives’ rank of importance(Society for Human Resource Management, 2011). Both the coach and team engage in discussions to set the time frame and the approaches to implementing the process. In the third step, coaching action takes place through questioning and interactive sessions between the coach and the team. The coach remains in charge of exploring methods as well as monitoring and evaluation. The fourth step forms the closure or exit and involves reflections on the progress. The team seeks to know the adequacy of their efforts while the coach evaluates the established goals. The coach delineates the methods used and aspects of the process that need progressive changes. Ultimately, the process involves the documentation of noteworthy interactions to facilitate idea-sharing.

A Mentoring Approach to Leadership

Under mentoring, the mentor gives direction, support, and guidance to the team, depending on the presented needs. He or she plays a role in assisting the team in developing talents, observing and imparting skills, offering professional support, and sharing experiences. On the other hand, the team acts as the key relationship driver as the school fraternity communicates on the knowledge, skills, or objectives that they need to achieve (Clutterbuck, 2014). The mentor also serves as the overall development planner and maintains the mentoring action plan while linking it with the set goals.

The mentor helps the team in gathering the required resources, such as important information for learning and sharing the same. A typical mentoring process involves setting the location, the date, and time of the meeting. The meeting sets out the learning objectives and the planning towards their realization. The discussion takes place on the action plan along with the timeframes. Along the process, planning for future engagements takes place. The process culminates with monitoring, evaluation as well as a review of the progress. The use of a formal approach guides the entire team in dealing with uncertainties while offering openings for exploring new developments. Structured events provide opportunities for the realization of a progressive, supportive, and focused goal between the team and the mentor.

As evidenced in the literature, the coaching and mentoring process requires the utilization of the best methods and techniques. Two models used include OSKAR and GROW. OSKAR comprises of outcome, scaling, know-how, action, and review. The outcome is what is set to be attained and the desired destination set by the individual (Connor and Pokora, 2012). Scaling envisions the existing situation and the desired destination, while know-how identifies the possessed skills and knowledge. Action provides reinforcement and deciding on the action to take. The review looks into the activities done to achieve change and future forecasting changes.

Conversely, the GROW involves the goal, reality, options, and wants. The coach helps in defining the goal to be attained. Reality determines the starting point after the team delineates their present reality. Options encompass the possibilities, both bad and good options. W represents what, where, and when aimed at action commitment in a timescale. On the other hand, two noteworthy techniques include preparing the physical environment and employing effective communication skills (Whitmore, 2010). Effective communication remains a major factor in realizing the objectives. The coach/mentor needs to address the team on face to face basis as it provides a unique opportunity for direct interactions and reading non-verbal cues while receiving immediate feedback for a fruitful engagement. Similarly, preparing the physical environment takes account of the place, access, location, and safety. It needs to ensure a comfortable setting that is accessible to both parties while considering the safety aspect. The setting for all engagements also needs to be free from distractions to ensure an undisturbed process.

Since the development of the current curriculum, different changes to policy frameworks have sought to enhance the experience of beginning teachers while facilitating their assessment. Most of the changes took place through the application of knowledge management and assessment, which proves to limit as it involves control or restriction (Krogh et al., 2006). However, knowledge conception remains contingent on an enabling setting or school environment that novice teachers require to translate knowledge into practice (Krogh et al., 2006). In a restrictive primary school setting, in which novice teachers face continuous assessments rather than professional development, the inability of the school leaders to make reforms to this setting could prove harmful to the learners (Bartlett, 2018). In fact, evidence indicates that teachers’ confidence in their instructional efficiency strongly predicts the level of academic achievement among young primary school children (Bartlett, 2018). Consequently, the need for the school leadership to implement changes holds the key to improved perception of instructional efficacy among novice teachers.

The United Kingdom’s Department for Education develops policies on primary school education.  With Nick Gibb as the Minister of State for School Standards, the need to enhance policies seems a rather politically instigated process (Panchamia and Thomas, 2014). Gibb boasts of a management viewpoint based on the government exerting control over schools and their leadership to maintain world-class standards (Barber, 2016). His approach stresses the need for government officials to engage in command and directive measures to promote the school’s leadership responsibility for the expected results (Cranston, 2013). His control-based method in leadership across primary schools provides a platform through which school heads can enhance performance (Barber, 2016). On the other hand, such an approach tends to create an overdependence on the top leadership in implementing changes (Seddon, 2008).

With the lack of consideration that teachers possess intrinsic competencies, his leadership style fails to provide them with an opening to accomplish various educational goals as well as those of their schools. From such a standpoint, the school leader takes the responsibility of exerting authority over the rest of the teachers within their school to accomplish their objectives (Bratton and Gold, 2012). It calls for them to apply all kinds of strategies to steer forward the desired change (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2017). However, despite its proven success, such an approach leadership faces criticism for undermining the inherent capabilities of staff to pinpoint innovative and more effective methods of functioning in the institution (Seddon, 2008; Deming, 1993).  The other downside is that its high-stakes liability tends to give rise to adverse methods that fortify the status quo and create inefficiencies. Additionally, (Bungay Stanier, 2016) argues that employing a control-based leadership style purely causes an all-knowing leader who is considered infallible. Consequently, continuous application of such an approach can give rise to a culture of extreme dependence on the school head to identify, conceptualize, and direct change in the institution (Bungay Stanier, 2016). Due to the resultant burden on the leader, the process of change tends to face different obstacles rather than an acceleration in different contexts.

As most scholars agree, having a clear and well-articulated vision remains fundamental to every successful leadership (Armstrong, 2012). While it is imperative for the school to uphold a clear vision that brings everyone on board, the challenges faced by novice teachers during induction means that it is extremely crucial for the school leadership to embrace creative approaches (Cullingford, 2006). Evidence indicates that taking up complex processes and trying to make them simplistic can prove troublesome for leaders when their overall vision fails to match up to the difficulties of the implementation process. A good example is the case of Margaret Thatcher’s decision to eliminate the milk program for junior school learners. It is worth noting that in their established work environment, schools function as smooth-running entities. However, with the challenges that remain to haunt the novice teachers upon placement in schools, the leadership requires to modify their school culture to ensure the needed transformation (Day et al. 2010).

For a school operating within a policy framework, implementation of long-term changes proves particularly challenging owing to the intricacy of external influences beyond the institution’s control (Calabrese, 2002). Cameron and Green (2012)presented that having adaptive leadership proves more useful for an organization compared to visionary leadership. Their argument rested on the promise of eliminating the overdependence typically created in a visionary leadership structure that tends to undermine the organization’s aptitude for transformation. In addition, they maintained that effective leadership makes sure to communicate the main challenges expected in the process of change. In turn, it enables the members of staff to become actively engaged in determining suitable actions to adjust to the various challenges (Cameron and Green, 2012). Consequently, making the needed policy adjustments with regard to induction programs for novice teachers in the UK calls for a more comprehensive leadership method.

Consequently, central to the reforms of the school’s policy framework and improvement of induction programs for newly qualified teachers is a collaborative approach.  The entire teaching fraternity requires a collaborative approach to the reforms to the educational framework, which is expected to necessitate the realignment of the school culture. This will ensure a better environment for the newly qualified teacher who is regularly antagonized by the constraints to professional development. It seeks to eliminate impediments such as the school culture, apathetic attitudes, their own hardly sufficient experience with different subjects’ scope and pedagogy.

Encompassing all the teaching members from the school, the leadership’s modifications to the induction program seeks to utilize the monetary, human, and physical assets available towards reducing the challenges faced by the newly qualified teachers. Consequently, the major task is in making the system to be more receptive to the teachers’ professional needs and hence reduce the stress of having to figure it out alone. Getting unbiased accessibility to differentsupport mechanisms under the induction program for all novice teachers remains pertinent since the process of integrating into a professional environment affects instructor efficacy. Through productive meetings, it must remain clear that the local government is aware and seeks to address significant issues in the deployment of newly qualified teachers. As the leader of my team, my observation indicates a rather balanced need for attendance across the various class teachers. While largely spearheaded by the leaders, most constructive processes of changeprovide a chance to the team members to raise issues on the problem at hand.

The use of a distributed leadership approach offers an effective way to implement changes due to the prominenceunderlined in empowering the members of a team to take various roles in process implementation (MacBeath, Oduro, and Waterhouse, 2004). Its approach lays emphasis on empowering others to take up leadership roles instead of seeking to realize change through a command-based method (MacBeath, Oduro, and Waterhouse, 2004). Leadership characterised by embracing a distributed approach remains centred on allowing others to make leadership contributions through creating an enabling environment. It consequently reduces reliance on the leader for instructions on the way forward in change implementation (MacBeath, Oduro, and Waterhouse, 2004). Considering that the context of a school presents with an environment of interactions, distributed leadership provides an opportunity for increased responsibility.

The leadership in the school needs a strategic approach to leadership, prompting the leader to make assessments on the work environment to identify any prospective challenges and establishing the potential opportunities arising from the challenges (Quong and Walker, 2010; Rumelt, 2017), making timely communication regarding the challenges facing the school and the openings that it can exploit offers the promise of rapid change implementation (Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2000). By supporting each member of the team to contribute to the resolution of the identified challenges, the leadership offers an opportunity for creativity from various team members. In turn, the leader gets an opportunity to detach from the need to direct such processes and concentrate on more control-oriented tasks (Bungay Stanier, 2016). Through its approach, mentoring offers a mechanism through which the school leadership can guarantee that staff members recognize the challenges encountered by novice teachers. It also paves the way for empowering the team to take charge of identifying operational ways of reforming the induction program, enabling the school to respond to the needs of novice teachers.

In their analysis of the hierarchy of needs, different scholars presented that every person aims to attain self-actualization (Cameron and Green, 2012).  However, realizing self-actualization requires one to fulfill their needs from a psychological, self-esteem, and welfare, as well as a love and belonging perspective. Understanding this hierarchy provides the leader with a basis of mentorship constructed in a progressive understanding of human needs. Through the approach, the leader gains an opportunity to make considerations of the individual needs of each team member and equip them in advancing and attaining self-actualization. Towards facilitating team members to participate in the process of change, it remains imperative that the leaders gain a thorough comprehension of the effect of the change on the members, especially with regard to how it impacts their attainment of self-actualization.

In skills development, a five-stage framework of adult applies as outlined by (Dreyfus 2004). As a highly applicable concept that details five phases of advancement, it works effectively in skills development. It starts from the point of unconscious incompetence seen in the novice phase, and the individual advances through other phases to attain the ultimate expert stage of unconscious competence. Considering the needs of each phase, obtaining new knowledge and skills can prove stressful for team members as they go through each phase of change adjustment (Starr, 2011). Each member will require personal advancement through the various phases of change adjustment to the point of reaching acceptance.  Having their resistance to change weakened, individuals manage to fully take part in the change process. It is vital that the leader identifies the effect of the change on the team members to ensure an apt response to their personal needs and consequently reduce their resistance to change (Starr, 2011).

Making the teaching career a more appealing career choice necessitates paying attention to the needs of career support for novice teachers and advancing their professional development. In the school context, the team members must employ creativity and adaptability to make the most of the opportunity to support novice teachers (Wilkins, 2004). Through distributed leadership, the school leader can exploit its framework towards empowering the teaching fraternity to embrace active roles in change initiatives, which is better than imposing the roles on individuals (Wilkins, 2004). It is worth noting that the leader needs to remain cognizant that some individuals may feel intimidated by such responsibility, especially if their skills development puts them at the early stages of the change adjustment cycle (Starr, 2011).

By mentoring the team members, the leader gains an opportunity to work with members to achieve an enabling setting for them to exploit their capabilities while providing guidance and support as the need arises. Nevertheless, it is imperative that the school leader remains mindful of the possibility of having various members developing over-dependence on the offered guidance and support (Helfat et al. 2009). Maintaining a non-directive mentoring approach remains effective in eliminating over-dependence. Having a non-directive mentoring approach aligns with the distributed leadership model and applies effectively in the school context to creating and implement the needed changes in the induction of newly qualified teachers. In a study by Kotter (1995), a novice teacher in a new school faced difficulties building rapport with various classrooms and faced obstructions to hands-on exploration of better teaching methods to eliminate the lack of rigor. As part of addressing such concerns, my team remains in charge of the coordination of recommended quality improvement practices and expediting changes such as the validation of new approaches to induction. As the team leader, it remains crucial for the employment of a leadership approach that enables teachers to adapt to the systematic policy reforms that the team requires to implement (Hallinger, 2003). Coaching and mentoring serve a vital role in capitalizing on the team’s capabilities while at the same time, ensuring that everyone is equipped with the needed skills to handle any challenges arising from the process. Although I initially considered using only one approach, further reading revealed that both mentoring and coaching act as complementary aspects suitable to my context. I consider coaching techniques as indispensable towards stimulating individual growth and, therefore, beneficial to the team’s objectives.

Applying Mentoring in the School Context

Being a newly qualified teacher requires career support in the school of placement to facilitate the translation of knowledge into practice. Most national policies fail to focus on the development of harmonizing, rational, sufficiently equipped and quality assured measures needed by novice teachers (Harris, 2008). Teachers need sufficient induction throughout their first year to familiarize themselves with the environment and meet the learning needs of their pupils. They also need to gain new skills, knowledge, and competence needed in the classroom setup. Achieving policy changes in the school requires enhanced coordination across the different aspects of teacher education (Handy, 2011).  Such aspects comprise the initial training, through induction and early career support to continuous professional development.

The strong call for the implementation of articulate and coherent induction programs supporting novice teachers presents the belief that strong arguments exist in favor of optimizing induction programs. In the school context, offering support and progressive guidance to novice teachers at the beginning period yields significant benefits for their ensuing professional commitment. It also prevents newly qualified teachers from becoming frustrated and quitting the profession. Consequently, induction programs remain indispensable in contributing to increasing the number of teachers and the quality of instruction. Unlike various other careers, the teaching career in many often falls short in ensuring a progressive approach to facilitate the practitioners’ growth into different professional roles.

As seen in the school, as soon as a teacher attains training qualifications, he/she is often assigned full charge over classes. Consequently, the approach produces a gap and interrupts their seamless growth in the profession. Challenged by less enabling school culture, most novice teachers experience a steep transition from the teacher education institute into full duty once assigned teaching responsibilities at the school. The identified gap only increases courtesy of the school’s organization, where every teacher takes full responsibility for their classes. In effect, it generates a strong sense of seclusion for novice teachers. It indicates that upon attaining qualification, a teacher assumes full responsibility and remains all on their own. Due to this, lots of novice teachers go through a praxis-shock as they transition from trainees to beginning teachers (De Jong and Van Tartwijk, 2003). A large number of novice teachers complain about the profound absence of collegiality (Sorcinelli, 1992).

Being in the professional line, the proposed policy reforms emphasize on providing support and guidance for the beginning teacher as they build their confidence in the utilization of crucial teacher competencies, especially pedagogical understanding and skills. Through a mentoring approach, the induction stage provides the starting point for lifelong professional development for the novice teacher, creating a bridge between the teacher’s training and the continuous professional development stage. Looking at the social aspect, the importance of policy reforms focuses on supporting the newly qualified teacher to integrate into the school community. It seeks to expedite their understanding and acceptance of the norms, qualities, manners, values, and organisational structure established within the school. Conversely, the personal aspect addresses the course of growth of the teacher’s professional identity. It involves the advancement and amplification of personal values towards colleagues and pupils, as well as the teacher’s understanding and needs in teaching processes.

As the head of the school with extensive duties, I have inadequate time to dedicate myself to the policy reforms and have delegated the task to my deputy as I consider him capable of leading the reforms. In allowing my deputy to take charge of leadership in the change implementation, I purposed to embrace a distributed leadership approach (Bolden, 2011). It allowed for the creation of a supportive situation for my deputy to acquire knowledge and develop the skills needed to steer the process forward. Towards ensuring an appropriate framework for process advancement, it was crucial for the leader to involve other teachers from different classes in the school. Their input was valuable towards transforming the induction program in the school. Since most of them lacked prior experience in policy reforms, it was essential for them to study the various model of implementing such changes in a school.  With his team, my deputy made schedules to comprehend the challenges and elements necessary to ensure the realization of an effective reforms framework.

After understanding that leadership on the reforms process posed different challenges for my deputy and his team, I learned that their skills development fell under the initial phase of Dreyfus’s (2004) five-stage model.  Consequently, they had resorted to the love and belonging phase under Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Addressing this required adopting a developmental mentoring approach to allow for the provision of advice and guidance to my colleague in a bid to support him in the attainment of knowledge needed to lead the policy reforms while providing room for him to reflect on his improvement and individual progress. Formalizing the mentoring process required a continuous schedule of one hour weekly engagements with my deputy to ensure progressive discussions on the reform process and his skills development.

During the initial mentoring session, the focus remained on establishing the boundaries needed for each mentoring session and clarifying the hoped outcomes for each party. Being the contracting stage, it had much importance in the mentoring and coaching process. Setting out the relationship’s boundaries at the initial phase made it possible to set realistic expectations while ensuring their achievability for both parties. It also facilitated the reduction of potential errors and impractical expectations, consequently promoting the prospect of a fruitful mentoring process. With a goal-focused approach to mentoring, adopting the GROW approach to coaching with the necessity of having predetermined goals and was consequently taking a directive course.

Each session required to ask a succession of open-ended questions as advocated by (Whitmore 2017).  The questions worked in favor of getting my deputy to make situational reflections based on the available options available and the necessary actions needed to transform the goal into a reality. Both parties resolved to require my deputy to improve their understanding of policy reforms in induction programs for newly qualified teachers. My assistance came in the form of engaging him in a guidance approach that could provide the needed information for improving their knowledge and understanding of the reform process. We maintained coaching sessions a few months, which sufficed to provide time for reflection on the reform progress and decision making on various courses of action towards attaining the anticipated goal.

As soon as my deputy depicted an increase in knowledge regarding reforms in the induction program, it rapidly became obvious that various actions required to inaugurate an effective framework remained beyond his control.  Consequently, he needed in-depth engagements with team members from the various classes in a bid to expedite the process. To maximize their input, my deputy proposed that the team creates a functioning group so that every staff member could understand the various ways in which their contribution helped in the realization of the set goal. I heartened my deputy with to progress with the proposed course of action and facilitated him to recognize suitable colleagues within the school who were best placed to offer the needed assistance in attaining the goal.

After setting the goal to creating the function group, the next step in the mentoring sessions required to focus on the function group to optimize its contributions (French and Simpson, 2010) while enabling my deputy to focus the devotion of the school colleagues towards the sought-after goal. Meetings with the function group allowed the team to agree on the needed actions towards helping the school in accomplishing its policy reform (Day, 2009). Through the sessions, a close engagement took place with open-ended questions remaining the focal point of encouraging my deputy to make reflections on his progress.

The questions paved the way for him to recognize the actions needed to move them closer towards the goal. I made sure to hold back aspects of guidance and advice except when my deputy made specific inquiries that seemed to puzzle them in process advancement. Through contributing to the various aspects, I managed to support my deputy to realize a breakdown of the reform process into a series of practical activities (Drucker, 2002). Consequently, it eliminated the pressure that my deputy initially felt upon taking up the task and forming the setup needed to develop across Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and attain self-actualisation (Edmondson, 2003). Since the policy reforms are still on course to enhance induction for newly qualified teachers, my deputy has made noteworthy advancement towards the set-out objective and has realized valuable skills that equip him for even more taxing future assignments.

Conclusion

Through embracing a mentoring method in the identified process, I utilized distributed leadership to capture the goals of personal development (Cameron and Green, 2012). It made it possible to focus more on empowerment instead of directive instruction as I encouraged my deputy to embrace the leadership of a policy reform process aimed at benefiting the school through support to all newly qualified teachers deployed therein.  The utilization of a distributed leadership method to enable my colleague to spearhead the project, it was possible to eliminate the leadership burden on myself while allowing time to focus on other things. As the agent of change, mentoring my deputy provided the best means of supporting him to develop various skills necessary to spearhead the process.

While remaining aware that the added responsibility of fronting the process impacted my deputy in various ways, I managed to recognise that his development occurred along with the beginningphase of Dreyfus’s model. Having an added duty made him regress into the love and understanding phase of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Similarly, I realized that the improbability presented by the necessity to acquire new knowledge and skills, as well as the extra duty implied that my deputy could no longer remain in his comfort zone (Drucker, 2102). Consequently, he went through an emotional phase in response to the adjustments underlined in the change process.

Mentoring afforded a valuable opportunity for the identification of the difficulty of my deputy’s reaction to change and aided in the provision of suitable conditions for him to acquire knowledge and skills necessary to eliminate the experienced anxiety. It consequently worked in his favor as it reduced his struggle in embracing change while increasing the possibility of a fruitful ending. My approach ensured the use of a leadership style that empowering while offering a touch of command-based aspects in goal setting and subsequent empowerment through offering the needed guidance and advice. On the other hand, the coaching approach enabled fruitful interactions and facilitated my deputy in making reflections concerning the process of change. He managed to simplify the process into achievable actions that steered him forward in realizing the goal.

In light of my experience, it is necessary that schools implementing induction reforms engage in mentoring as it sets the platform for distributed leadership (Bolden, 2011). It also works in empowering the teaching fraternity within the school to take active roles in change implementation. While visionary leadership applies essentially in different organisations, the challenge presented by reform implementation requires a distributed leadership approach (Bolden, 2011). Through coaching, it was possible to exploit some valuable tools to empower my deputy to effectively lead the school in achieving the set goal.  As the complementary approach to coaching, mentoring enables leaders to offer guidance and consequently guarantees that they retain a certain degree of control over the process of attaining the set goal.

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